Growing up without access to biological family medical history leaves adoptees facing profound diagnostic uncertainties when confronting health scares. When Aaliyah, a 26-year-old trainee solicitor, found a lump in her breast, she desperately wanted to know if she carried a hereditary predisposition to cancer. Describing the experience as a terrifying genetic vacuum where she could not answer routine questions about her biological family’s health, she faced this hurdle because she had been separated from her birth parents at seven months old and subsequently adopted, leaving her completely cut off from her medical background.
The lump ultimately proved to be non-cancerous, but the search for answers revealed systemic hurdles within the adoption and healthcare systems. In the UK, when a child is adopted, their NHS number or equivalent health service identifier is changed to protect anonymity. While existing medical records should be merged with new records, this process does not necessarily include wider family medical history, and specialist support from local authorities varies across the country.
The Bureaucratic Search for Records
Aaliyah spent years trying to source information from local authorities before making an official data access request to Bradford Council, which had removed her as a baby. She characterized the process by stating, I would say bureaucratic hellscape is an understatement.
Days before her 25th birthday, a large unmarked envelope arrived at her Birmingham home containing pages of family history, court records, and a social worker’s letter. The documents revealed that her biological mother had struggled with eating disorders all her life—information Aaliyah noted would have been incredibly useful when she suffered from severe anorexia in her teens. They were just given to me in a completely nondescript pile, and they contained completely earth-shattering information, of which I don’t think I have ever recovered from,
she said.
In response to inquiries, Bradford Council issued a statement admitting fault: We are genuinely sorry that when Aaliyah received sensitive and personal information through her subject access request, we did not offer the support or signposting she needed. We recognise that we should have done more.
The council noted they are strengthening their approach so adults accessing records receive clear support information, and Bradford Children and Families Trust offered Aaliyah a meeting to discuss her experience.
Delays in Discovering Genetic Conditions
For Dr Chris Tennyson, a 40-year-old clinical psychologist from Belfast, missing medical background similarly created critical delays. Adopted as a baby in the 1980s, he grew up in a comfortable family home but became curious about his biological origins in his 20s. Though he met his birth mother, social workers warned him off asking questions about his father. He attempted to trace him eight years later, and a meeting was finally arranged when Chris was 33.
On the afternoon he was due to meet his father, a social worker approached him with urgent news. There’s something that I need to share with you,
the social worker said. Your father wants me to let you know that there’s a genetic medical condition within your family.
A family member had died from the condition in 2000, and while other relatives were offered testing at the time, Chris was 14 and was not contacted.
